Fake news is better countered by flooding with real news than censorship.
Evidence
According to Brooke Binkowski, managing editor of the fact-checking website Snopes, “pinching off fake news isn’t the answer. The answer is flooding it with actual news. And that way, people will continue looking for information, and they will find vetted, nuanced, contextual, in-depth information.” While this sounds sensible, it surely will not rehabilitate the most motivated partisans, who look for stories that confirm their preexisting beliefs. Yet it does have the benefit of precedent. After all, isn’t “flooding” how fake news became so prominent in the first place? — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 233
Categorization
- SEED: Angle: the symmetric structure of ‘flooding’ — the same distribution mechanism that spreads falsehood could, if funded and supported, spread verified journalism.
- XREF: connects to: Filtering fake news invites charges of censorship bias. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 232; Fake news harming democracy is about indistinguishability, not volume. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 46; Fake news softens trust in sources before status-based propaganda replaces persuasion — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 229 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Filtering fake news invites charges of censorship bias.
#corroborates(0.80) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 232 - Fake news harming democracy is about indistinguishability, not volume.
#qualifies(0.78) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 46 - Fake news softens trust in sources before status-based propaganda replaces persuasion
#expands(0.72) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 229 - Fake news functions as a rallying cry delegitimizing the press, not as a theory.
#complicates(0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 259